2
Markets for Drugs

This chapter uses the idea of a drug market as an analytical concept with which to consider how market-level demand and supply forces affect prices and drug use. Other social science research, such as ethnographic studies, provides much richer descriptions and other insights about how actual illegal drug markets function on a day-to-day basis, and our discussion of the distinctive features of drug markets incorporates insights from this type of research. Further developing the economic approach to capture more of the features of real-world drug markets across the world is an important on-going research topic.

This chapter provides a summary of what is known about major illegal drug markets. It first lays out the basic demand-and-supply analysis framework and explores the strengths and limitations of the basic models, and then considers three distinctive features of illegal drug markets:

the role of imperfect information: the fact that sellers and buyers are uncertain about the quality and quantity of drugs in a transaction;

epidemics and contagion: the sudden speed with which drug use can increase and the fact that it spreads through social contact; and

the role of enforcement in affecting the price of drugs and the manner in which they are distributed.

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2
Markets for Drugs
T
his chapter uses the idea of a drug market as an analytical con-
cept with which to consider how market-level demand and supply
forces affect prices and drug use. Other social science research, such
as ethnographic studies, provides much richer descriptions and other
insights about how actual illegal drug markets function on a day-to-
day basis, and our discussion of the distinctive features of drug markets
incorporates insights from this type of research. Further developing the
economic approach to capture more of the features of real-world drug
markets across the world is an important on-going research topic.
This chapter provides a summary of what is known about major ille-
gal drug markets. It first lays out the basic demand-and-supply analysis
framework and explores the strengths and limitations of the basic models,
and then considers three distinctive features of illegal drug markets:
1. the role of imperfect information: the fact that sellers and buy -
ers are uncertain about the quality and quantity of drugs in a
transaction;
2. epidemics and contagion: the sudden speed with which drug use
can increase and the fact that it spreads through social contact;
and
3. the role of enforcement in affecting the price of drugs and the man-
ner in which they are distributed.

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UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
FRAMEWORK: SUPPLY-AND-DEMAND MODEL
The supply-and-demand model provides the basic economic frame -
work for drug policy. Efforts to provide economic models of illegal mar-
kets go back at least four decades (e.g., Becker, 1968), but the standard eco-
nomic model has key limitations in understanding illegal drug markets.
The implicit features of many legal markets in modern economies—for
example, quality certification and available legal mechanisms to guard
against fraud—are typically absent from illegal drug markets. Moreover,
many key variables are difficult to observe. Illegal drug markets are
also characterized by complex features, such as addiction (which means
responses to increases and decreases in prices may differ) and high search
costs (so that consumers must invest time in finding information about
the product) that are sometimes found in legal markets but that are dif -
ficult to incorporate in simple models.
Despite these limitations, the basic supply-and-demand model pro-
vides a specific language to explore causal pathways of proposed public
policies. It provides a framework to interpret available data on observed
prices and quantities of illegal substances in particular markets. It focuses
attention on basic parameters—the sensitivity of supply and demand to
prevailing prices, production technologies, and costs—that are influenced
by public policy. Finally, these simple models provide points of departure
for richer theoretical and empirical investigations of particular markets.
Figure 2-1 presents a very basic model to illustrate the impact of a supply-
side law enforcement intervention.
The market demand curve D1 slopes downward: at higher prices,
users in the aggregate purchase a lower quantity of the drug in question.
The market demand curve reflects two types of responses to higher prices:
some drug users cut back on their consumption, while others may drop
out of the market and become nonusers (at least of the drug in question).
As is discussed below, addiction raises the possibility of asymmetry in
that lower prices may increase participation; higher prices may not reduce
participation in the short run.
The market supply curve S1 slopes upward: at higher prices, the sup -
ply network is willing to provide more drugs to the market. The market
supply curve again reflects two types of responses to higher prices: some
current suppliers expand the size of their drug-dealing business, and
there may also be new entrants who provide new sources of supply.
A supply-side intervention—such as increased border interdiction or
more intensive police actions against street dealers—causes the market
supply curve to shift up, or alternatively to the left, to curve S2. The verti -
cal distance between S1 and S2 may be interpreted as the increase in unit
production and distribution costs induced by supply-side interventions.
This shift captures the idea that to compensate for the extra risks and

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
FIgURE 2-1 Impact of a supply-side enforcement with a steep demand curve.
costs created by the policy intervention, suppliers require a higher price
to bring any given quantity of drugs to the market. How much the supply
curve shifts depends on the effectiveness of the enforcement efforts and
suppliers’ ability to respond to those efforts. Suppose, for example, that
police increase arrests of street-level dealers. How much this raises unit
production costs reflects how much drug-selling organizations have to
raise wages to compensate dealers for the additional risk, on the assump -
tion that the dealers can estimate that rise. It also reflects how effectively
these organizations can shift their production and distribution systems
in response to these enforcement shifts. If sellers can shift sales activities
indoors or otherwise avoid the increased enforcement, the shift from S1
to S2 will be small.
The standard model assumes that the market price adjusts until an
equilibrium is reached at which the quantity demanded equals the quan-
tity supplied. The original equilibrium in Figure 2-1 is E1: Q1, P1. After
the supply-side intervention, a new equilibrium is reached, E2: Q2, P2.
This new equilibrium reflects an interaction of both supply and demand
factors. The relative slopes of these curves determine the extent that
increased production costs are borne by consumers in the form of higher
prices. The supply-and-demand model yields the fundamental insight
that a supply-side intervention on the model of the “war on drugs”

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0 UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
should produce higher drug prices. At the new drug market equilibrium
E2, the market price of the drug is higher (P2 > P1), and the quantity of
drugs purchased and consumed is lower (Q2 < Q1).
Even when this model is not explicitly used, this fundamental insight
of the supply-and-demand model is commonly recognized. For example,
when drug prices have remained constant or have fallen during a period
of increased antidrug efforts, many observers conclude that the war on
drugs has failed (e.g., Walsh, 2008). In essence, these observers view
the market price of a drug as a sufficient statistic for, or at least a useful
indicator of, conditions in the drug market. Although it cannot be inter-
preted as a performance measure without other indicators, it does have
substantial information.
However, the information contained in the market price must be inter-
preted carefully. The first insight is illustrated by the difference between
Figures 2-1 and 2-2. That comparison shows that the magnitudes of the
effects of the same supply-side intervention depend on the steepness of
the demand curve for drugs.
In Figure 2-2 with a relatively flat demand curve (i.e., one that is very
responsive to price changes), the supply-side intervention causes a rela-
tively small increase in the market price to P2’. Under this hypothetical
situation, the war on drugs has worked quite well by sharply reducing
the quantity of drugs consumed to Q2’. However, precisely because drug
demand is so responsive to the higher prices caused by the intervention,
the price does not have to increase much to restore equilibrium. In con-
trast, the sharp increase in price seen in Figure 2-1 is accompanied by a
smaller reduction in the quantity of drugs consumed—the war on drugs
did not work that well. The comparison of Figures 2-1 and 2-2 shows that
it is important not to confuse the indicator—the market price—with the
policy objective (reducing drug use).
Which figure is a more realistic description of the drug market depends
on the price elasticity of demand (discussed in more detail below). In this
situation elasticity denotes the percentage change in the quantity of drug
demanded given a 1 percent increase in the price. In similar fashion, the
price elasticity of supply denotes the percentage change in the quantity
of drug supplied given a 1 percent increase in the price.1
One might assume, based on the commonsense notion of addiction,
that drug demand is relatively inelastic or unresponsive to prices, which
is the assumption behind Figure 2-1. However, as we discuss in more
detail below, the price elasticity of demand varies across drugs (heroin,
cocaine, marijuana), types of users (heavy, occasional), and time (with
1 Given these definitions, the price elasticity of demand is generally negative, and the price
elasticity of supply is generally positive.

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
FIgURE 2-2 Impact of a supply-side enforcement with a flat demand curve.
consumers being more sensitive to price over the long term). In fact,
demand for heavily addictive substances is consistent with a wide range
of price elasticities. Suppose, for example, that an individual spends every
cent of her monthly income on crack cocaine. If crack cocaine prices rise
by 1 percent with no accompanying change in her economic circum-
stances, she will spend the same amount and thus purchase 1 percent
less crack than she did before. This implies a price elasticity of demand
of –1. Luksetich and White (1983) suggest, based on early ethnographic
work, that heroin addicts may have a fixed budget for all items other
than heroin, representing the minimum that is needed for shelter, food,
and clothes; if so, there would be unitary price elasticity. In contrast, more
affluent users of marijuana, for whom the drug accounts for a small share
of their total incomes, may change their total consumption very little in
response to price increases.
A second insight is that many market factors other than price can cause
drug demand to shift. The analytical emphasis of the supply-and-demand
model is on prices and quantities, but this analytical emphasis does not
mean that price is the most important empirical demand influence. The
demand curve shows the relationship between quantity demanded and
price if all other influences are constant. When one or more of these other
influences change, the entire demand curve shifts: at each given price, the
quantity of the drug demanded has shifted.

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UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
Potential demand shifters include demand-side public policies,
such as antidrug media campaigns or treatment programs; law enforce -
ment measures that target users; demographic factors; changing atti-
tudes toward intoxication and self-control; and economic factors, such as
income and employment opportunities. Under the conventional view that
drug demand is relatively price inelastic, changes in these other influences
are likely to be important explanations for observed variation in drug
markets over time and across geographic units, particularly since some
of them, especially tastes, can change rapidly.
Demand-side policies seek to shift the demand curve down (left).
All else being equal, such policies shift the equilibrium down the sup -
ply curve, resulting in a lower equilibrium price and a lower quantity
of drugs consumed. If social harms associated with illegal drug use are
positively related to the dollars spent on these substances (since these are
criminal incomes), demand-side interventions are especially attractive
because they induce favorable price and quantity effects, while supply-
side interventions generate only favorable quantity effects.
Demand shifts can also obscure the impact of supply-side interven -
tions. Figure 2-3 shows a hypothetical situation in which a supply-side
FIgURE 2-3 Drug supply and demand with simultaneous shifts in demand and
supply curves.

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
intervention was launched about the same time as a nonprice influence
shifted the demand curve out (up and to the right). An example of such a
demand influence is an increase in the population cohort size of adoles -
cents and young adults. Jacobson (2004) found that marijuana prevalence
was strongly and positively correlated with the number of 15- to 19-year-
olds in the U.S. population, perhaps reflecting what is referred to as the
“Easterlin hypothesis”—that behavior is affected by competition within
a cohort (see, e.g., Easterlin, 1978). At the new equilibrium, the quantity
of drug use has not changed much because of the offsetting effects of the
supply-side intervention and the demand shift. However, the supply-
side intervention succeeded in preventing drug use from increasing to
Q3, which would have been the result if the demand had shifted in the
absence of the intervention. In this case, the price increase from P1 to P3
is a valid indicator of the success of the supply-side intervention, even
though success is not apparent in changes in the quantity used.
BEYOND THE BASIC MODEL:
DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF DRUg MARKETS
The discussion so far has used the basic model of supply and demand
as described in any introductory economics textbook (e.g., Frank and
Bernanke, 2004). The textbook model is about an ideal market with many
rational and well-informed consumers and producers who buy and sell
units of a homogenous commodity. The markets for an agricultural prod-
uct like wheat might approach this ideal. Yet in many respects, conditions
in the markets for illegal drugs seem to dramatically depart from the
textbook model.
These departures do not invalidate insights from the basic model of
supply and demand, but they once again call for careful interpretation.
Many legitimate markets also diverge, in their particulars, from the basic
supply-and-demand model. The phenomenon of unemployment suggests
excess supply of workers (at a given wage) within the labor market. Such
economic models as efficiency wage theory seek to explain why wages
persist above the market-clearing level (Akerlof and Yellen, 1986).
Product Quality
Illegal drug consumers cannot directly verify product quality prior
to purchase. Yet the same might be said of the cross-country traveler
who stops at a roadside diner or the life insurance company that is for-
bidden by law from performing certain informative medical tests. Prior
to the founding of eBay and related websites, search costs and quality
differences were dominant factors in the markets for collectibles and
antiques.

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UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
Yet even when compared with those market factors, unknown quality
variation is likely greater for illegal drugs. One reason is that, even after
consumption, the quality of cocaine or heroin can be rated only imper-
fectly; given substantial variation over time for a given individual in the
experience provided by a given quantity of cocaine, heroin, or other sub-
stances. For example, the intensity of a drug experience is influenced by
the time since last use, the expectations of the user, and circumstances of
use, summarized in the phrase, “drug, set, and setting” (Zinberg, 1984).
Intermingling of Supply and Demand
Another distinctive element of illegal drug markets is the intermingling
of the supply and demand sides. Many heavy users of illegal drugs engage
in some drug selling, with the proportion of seller-users differing by sub-
stance (see National Institute of Justice, 2003). Frequent users may account
for a large share of the drug-selling workforce and sellers may account for
a large share of total consumption; selling is a highly opportunistic activ-
ity, so that most dealers do it only on an occasional basis (e.g., Reuter et
al., 1990).
Users are also important in the supply side of heroin and cocaine mar-
kets for another reason. Facing limited opportunities in legal labor markets
and already in contact with drug-selling networks, users provide a ready
low-wage labor pool for illegal markets. Thus, demand-side measures, such
as expanded treatment, may raise distribution costs for drugs because it
takes users out of the drug-selling labor force. Users play an important, if
casual, role in the marijuana market; in an analysis of data from the 2001
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), Caulkins and Pacula
(2006) found that 89 percent of marijuana users most recently acquired the
substance from a friend or relative, typically in small amounts.
Addiction is also an important and distinctive feature of the illegal
drug market, though it is also important for the markets for tobacco, alco -
hol, and caffeine. A sophisticated literature exists to explore the supply
and demand sides of these markets for addictive legal products. In many
analyses, researchers examined variations across the states in tobacco and
beer excise taxes to explore supply-demand models (see, e.g., Cook and
Moore, 1993; Grossman, 2004). Given evidence that producers pass almost
the entire excise tax burden to consumers, these analyses provide reason -
able estimates of consumers’ demand response to increased prices.
Role of Rationality and Efficiency
Important lines of theoretical and empirical research in economics
show that the notion of rational drug consumers is not as far-fetched as it

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
initially seems. In a seminal work, Becker and Murphy (1988) developed
a model with rational consumers that demonstrates how many of the phe-
nomena of addiction can be analyzed in an economic model. Orphanides
and Zervos (1995) extended the rational addiction model to incorporate
learning and regret.
Significant criticisms are made of rational addiction and related mod-
els. (e.g., Auld and Grootendorst, 2004). Such models may presume a high
level of foresight and market knowledge among consumers—a combina -
tion that rests uneasily with the high discount rates observed in empirical
research (Becker et al., 1994; Chaloupka, 1991).
More recent work in behavioral economics addresses these difficulties.
These analyses incorporate insights from psychological studies, includ -
ing certain departures from rationality, into economic models. Gruber
and koszegi (2001) reformulated the rational model to incorporate time-
inconsistent preferences.
Most recently, Bernheim and Rangel (2004) developed an economic
model of cue-triggered addiction. In this framework, a consumer is
assumed to operate in two modes. In the “cold” mode, the consumer’s
decision processes are properly functioning and lead to selection of most
preferred alternatives. In the “hot” mode, decision processes are dysfunc -
tional, possibly resulting in drug use even when that is not (rationally)
preferred. Because addicts know they make bad decisions while in the
hot mode, they can make life-style changes to reduce the probability of
that mode.
Notably, the different theoretical economic models of addiction yield
the same prediction: drug users will respond to higher prices, so the mar-
ket demand curve slopes downward. Many of these models also suggest
that users (and potential users) are more responsive to long-standing or
permanent price changes than they are to recent or transient changes in
price.
Empirical studies of the price responsiveness of drug demand are
discussed in more detail below. Although it has been hard to pin down
the magnitude of the price responsiveness (as summarized by the price
elasticity of demand), there is general empirical support for the proposi -
tion that drug demand curves slope downward.
Analyses of legal addictive substances provide two broad insights
that likely apply to illegal substances. First, the demand curves of new
and low-income consumers are more price elastic than other consum -
ers. Second, as noted above, consumers respond more aggressively to
permanent price changes than they do to transient fluctuations. Elasticity
shows up in a related analytic literature that examines the efficiency con-
sequences of drug control policies. For example, Becker and colleagues
(2006) show that the social costs of enforcement policies decline with

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6 UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
supply and demand elasticities. The more there is inelasticity in either
supply or demand, the higher are the social costs, construed narrowly,
from constraining the quantity consumed.
As noted above, it is impossible to assess policies aimed at the demand
side of a market without some basic understanding of the supply side.
A comparatively small economic literature examines points of similarity
and departure between the supply side of the illegal drug market and
standard economic accounts (for a useful review, see Rhodes et al., 2007).
Superficially, the decentralized network of dealers, producers, and the
various intermediaries between them seems to bear little resemblance to
an organized supply chain. Nevertheless, basic economic concepts pro -
vide an organizing framework to understand the actors on the supply side
and how they react to supply-side interventions.
Scope of Individual Operations
Levitt and Venkatesh (2000) provide a uniquely detailed organiza-
tional analysis of one drug-selling operation. Drawing on internal finan -
cial data, the authors describe the franchise nature of Chicago drug sell -
ing, in which gangs and their subunits control specific areas where illegal
transactions can occur. They suggest that this is in effect a tournament
compensation system, in which low-level dealers earn relatively low
wages in return for the prospect of advancement. The authors also docu -
ment the high rates of injury and death among street-level dealers, far
higher than those of most civilian occupations (even policing).
There are some troubling aspects to the Levitt and Venkatesh data.
We mention just three ways in which their data are inconsistent with
other data on drug markets. The best estimate of total sales volume in
the cocaine market is $30 billion for 1995 (Office of National Drug Con -
trol Policy, 2001). We assume, conservatively, that one-quarter of that was
accounted for by crack, giving total crack revenues of $7.5 billion. Levitt
and Venkatesh estimate annual sales per participant of $6,000, implying
that there are over 1 million sellers of crack, which is a far larger number
than estimated in other studies (e.g., Caulkins and Reuter, 1998). They
also estimated a 4 percent annualized risk of a homicide death for the
gang. However, the FBI has never estimated more than 2,000 drug-related
homicides annually, almost certainly too low a figure given the results of
individual city studies (e.g., Goldstein et al., 1992) and the limits of police
knowledge of the motives for specific homicides. But for crack alone, it
is unlikely to be as high as 2,500 (of a total of 20,000 homicides from all
causes), which, with a mortality rate of 4 percent, suggests only 62,500
sellers.
The enterprise seems too small in some dimension. If purchases were

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
made in units of 100 milligrams of pure cocaine, then this gang made
only 1,000 transactions per month. With 30 street dealers, this would
total about two sales per dealer per day, assuming that individuals sell
only about half the days of the year. This is a very low volume. In the
most closely comparable study, involving street-level dealers on cocaine
and heroin in Washington, DC, in 1988 based on interviews with dealers
as they entered probation, Reuter and colleagues (1990) reported about
12 sales transactions for a 4-hour selling session, as well as substantially
higher annual revenues per dealer. The Chicago gang records are consis-
tent with very occasional selling on the part of participants, but that can
not be reconciled with the authors’ estimate that the street dealers average
20 hours a week selling (Levitt and Venkatesh, 2000, p. 10). Although this
study provides important insights about the dynamics of drug-selling
careers, the actual numbers should be treated with caution.
Some Cost and Price Factors
Caulkins and Reuter (1998) provide a useful breakdown of the mag-
nitude of the components of costs of cocaine. They estimate that the
wholesale price of cocaine in Colombia accounts for about 1 percent of the
retail price of the drug on the street in the United States.2 Piecing together
several data sources, the authors estimate that the extra profits required
to compensate drug dealers for the risks of incarceration and the risks of
being killed or injured while dealing account for a little more than 50 per-
cent of the retail price. This study relied heavily on the Washington, DC,
study noted above (Reuter et al., 1990), which found that compensation
for the risks of deaths, injury, and incarceration accounted for approxi-
mately $21,000 per dealer annually.
Supply-side intervention can thus increase retail drug prices by
increasing the risk of incarceration and by increasing several other com -
ponents of costs, such as seizures of drugs and assets. kuziemko and
Levitt (2004) estimate that increases in the certainty and severity of incar-
ceration between 1985 and 2000 raised cocaine prices by 5-15 percent. The
implied elasticity of price with respect to incarceration rates was low. Dur-
ing that 10-year period, incarceration for drug law violations increased
from 82,000 to 376,000, about two-thirds of which were cocaine offenders
(roughly 200,000). Thus, to achieve the modest increase in cocaine prices,
it cost an extra $6 billion a year just for incarceration (assuming a cost of
$30,000 per year to house an inmate), not including the costs of apprehen-
sion and prosecution. This analysis, though just for one period and with
2 kilmer and Reuter (2009) provide a more fully documented price chain for both cocaine
and heroin for 2006.

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UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
limited data—for example, on actual time served by drug dealers—raises
questions about the cost-effectiveness of tough enforcement.
Another important complexity arises because the transactions between
drug users and drug sellers differ sharply from the textbook model. In
that model, consumers pay an agreed-upon price for a certain quantity of
a good of known quality, such as a gallon of gasoline of a specified octane.
In contrast, retail drug markets are characterized by conventional pricing,
where consumers pay $5 or $10 for “nickel” and “dime” bags (Caulkins,
2007) and avoid any haggling about price or making change. This conven-
tional pricing has obvious advantages for illegal transactions, but it can
result in poorly informed consumers since the weight and purity of the
contents of the nickel and dime bags are not standardized.
To interpret data on drug prices, researchers commonly adjust the
price for weight and purity. The resulting price per pure gram of drug
corresponds to the notion of price in the textbook model, but it does not
correspond to actual transaction prices. Drug users, and even drug deal -
ers, do not know the exact number of grams of pure drug in the dime bags
they exchange. As a result, there is great dispersion in the drug prices
paid. For example, the System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evi -
dence (STRIDE) data show that in 2002 the interquartile range of price for
heroin (for less than one gram raw weight) was $280 to $428 at the retail
level. In other words, a buyer had a one-quarter probability of paying less
than $280 and an equal probability of paying more than $428 (Office of
National Drug Control Policy, 2004).
This uncertainty by both consumers and sellers about the real price
and purity of drugs may have important implications for the behavior
of the market. Reuter and Caulkins (2004), using a model of the market
for “lemons” (products whose quality is difficult for the buyer to deter-
mine [Akerlof, 1970]), present a set of conjectures as to the sources and
consequences of this uncertainty. For example, it encourages customers
to purchase regularly from more than one seller in order to obtain infor-
mation about the relative quality-adjusted price of their principal source.
For sellers, it allows limited strategic manipulation of these prices. For a
formal model that attempts to incorporate these aspects of the market, see
Galenianos and colleagues (2009).
The process of consumer search plays a key role and can have com-
plex implications. For example, enhanced law enforcement efforts may
hinder consumer efforts to switch suppliers or compare prices. If consum-
ers are targeted (e.g., through sell-and-bust operations), it enhances the
bargaining power of sellers and hence may lead to higher prices or the
equivalent in terms of reduced quality.
Although several theoretically plausible accounts exist of consumer
demand for addictive substances, existing research rarely provides suffi -

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
cient information to distinguish among them. Drug markets include many
interconnected or unobservable components that complicate economic
analysis.
For analytical purposes, one key question is whether conventional
pricing (the use of a standardized price, with variable and unknown
quantity) changes the predictions of the supply-and-demand model, such
as the prediction that a supply-side intervention will reduce quantity
and increase price. Instead of raising the price of a dime bag, dealers are
assumed to react to a supply-side intervention by cutting the weight or
purity of the bag. If users consume the same number of dime bags per
day, the reduction in weight or purity means that they are consuming a
reduced quantity of pure drug and paying a higher price, adjusted for
weight and purity. Users may react to the cut in weight or purity by pur-
chasing more dime bags. However there may be a “quality illusion,” in
which the variability that users come to expect leads them to at least be
slow to adjust, if they adjust at all, to any decline in purity.
DRUg SUPPLY AND ELASTICITIES
Surveys provide greater information about drug demand than they
do about drug supply. As noted above, changes in observed prices reflect
the relative slopes (the relative elasticities) of both supply-and-demand
curves. In legal markets with good data on prices and quantities, estimat -
ing demand-and-supply curves is a straight-forward, although often chal -
lenging, econometric exercise. The covert nature of illegal drug markets
means that prices and quantities are not easily observed, if at all, but
some guidance can be found in studies of legal markets. In competitive
markets that display constant returns to scale, supply curves tend to be
more elastic than demand curves. These assumptions have been explic -
itly addressed in tobacco and alcohol markets, which find highly elastic
supply (Chaloupka et al., 2002). There are no comparably sound studies
about illegal drug markets.
Most studies of illegal drug markets implicitly or explicitly assume
very high elasticities. For example, Rhodes and colleagues (2002) assume
very elastic cocaine supply on the grounds that the agricultural pro-
duction technology is simple and inexpensive. To the extent that scarce
resources are required—for example, access to constrained smuggling
routes or specific marketing channel to street users—some upward slope
may be found.
One recent paper scrutinizes cross-state variation in the sanctions
imposed on marijuana users to examine the elasticity of marijuana supply
(Pacula et al., 2010). With lower user sanctions, the market demand curve
for marijuana increases (shifts up). The authors found that in response

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0 UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
to this demand shift, there is a short-term increase in marijuana prices.
This effect implies that the marijuana supply curve slopes upward (is not
perfectly elastic) in this market over the short run; in order to meet the
new demand spurred by lower user sanctions, suppliers require more
compensation in the form of higher prices.
A second analysis scrutinizes demographic changes to examine mari-
juana markets (Jacobson, 2004). This paper demonstrates that youth cohort
size is positively related to marijuana use prevalence and negatively
related to street marijuana prices. The author concludes: “Larger youth
cohorts yield thicker drug markets that, through lower sales arrest risk
and informational economies, generate cost-savings in drug distribution”
(p. 1481). This is an instance in which illegality leads to a tighter connec -
tion between changes in the demand side and supply elements.
There is a substantial noneconomic literature about the supply side
of drug markets, particularly at the retail level. For New York City in
particular, there is a long tradition of ethnographic studies of the subject
(e.g., Johnson et al., 1985; Preble and Casey, 1969) that has produced rich
descriptions of individual markets. For example, Bourgois spent 3 years
in a Hispanic section of Harlem observing the activities and lives of a
small group of dealers (Bourgois, 1996). A report of the National Research
Council (2001) made extensive reference to work by Curtis and Wendel
(2000). As summarized by Johnson and colleagues (2000), the New York
drug market had been through several transformations between 1960 and
2000 with varying degrees of organization. For other cities, there are just
occasional studies such as those about in Milwaukee (Hagedorn, 1998),
Chicago (National Drug Intelligence Center, 2007a), and Los Angeles
(National Drug Intelligence Center, 2007b).
Except for temporary and quite local situations, there is rarely men -
tion of market power by any group of drug retailers or of very large
retailing organizations. At the importing and wholesale level there may
indeed be large organizations, with hundreds of employees and sales
volumes in the tens of millions. An excellent and undercited study is that
by Fuentes (1998) describing Colombian-run importing organizations in
the early 1990s.
There does not appear to be any systematic synthesis of these stud-
ies that would allow general statements about the factors that influence,
for example, the extent to which a market is dominated by youth gangs
involved in other criminal activities or the share of revenues that go to
retail sellers or to higher-level participants. Both this line of research
and the economics literature would be enhanced by more collaborative
work.
Three overlapping reviews explore price elasticies of demand for
illegal substances. Before briefly summarizing their findings, it is useful

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
to distinguish between different forms of demand elasticities in common
use.
Participation elasticity denotes the percentage change in the number
of individuals who report any substance use that corresponds to a unit
percentage change in price. If Γ(P) is the proportion of individuals who
report any substance use at some price P, the participation elasticity is
then
P  ∂Γ 
ε participation = .
Γ  ∂P 

Participation elasticities are especially important when the goal is to
minimize the number of individuals who report any substance use.
Conditional elasticity is the percentage change in consumption that
corresponds to a unit percent change in price among individuals who
consume a positive quantity of the drug. If Q is the means quantity con-
sumed between active users,
P  ∂Q 
ε conditional = .
Q  ∂P 

Total price elasticity of demand represents the percentage change in total
consumption corresponding to a unit percentage change in price. Since
the total amount consumed is (ΓQ),
P  ∂(ΓQ)  P  ∂Q ∂Γ 
ε total =  ∂P  = ΓQ  Γ ∂P + Q ∂P 
ΓQ    
P  ∂Q  P  ∂Γ 
=   +   = ε conditional + ε participation .
Q  ∂P  Γ  ∂P 
As defined above, the total price elasticity of demand is the sum of the
conditional elasticity and the participation elasticity. Currently, the drug
research offers more analyses on participation elasticities than on the
other two quantities.
A second important distinction concerns long-run and short-run
demand elasticities. Economic theory predicts that consumers should be
more sensitive to long-term price changes than transient ones. This pat-
tern holds true for most goods, but particularly for addictive ones. Under
a rational addiction framework, long-run price increases raise the cost of
initiating use. Under a variety of other frameworks, such as those which
require adjustment costs, consumers may have some lag in responding
to price changes.
Grossman (2004) provides a useful policy discussion of the role of

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UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS
price mechanisms to regulate substance use. Using Monitoring the Future
(MTF) Survey data collected from high school seniors, he finds a partici -
pation elasticity of –0.46 for marijuana use. This point estimate is very
similar to that reported by Pacula and colleagues (2001), who reported
that the elasticity is between –0.69 and –0.30.
Rhodes and colleagues (2002) estimated a series of demand equa -
tions, linking NHSDA data on drug use behaviors to STRIDE data (from
undercover purchases) on the price of street drugs. The authors examined
demand behaviors among more chronic users by examining drug use
forecasting data from the National Institute of Justice, which provide
information from arrestees. Using 1988-1996 data, the authors find a con -
ditional price elasticity of approximately –0.33 for marijuana, with greater
price sensitivity for weekly users (a conditional price elasticity of –0.50)
and a lesser price sensitivity for more occasional users (a conditional price
elasticity of –0.25).
In the case of cocaine, several studies indicate a participation price
elasticity of demand for cocaine participation in the past year between
–0.41 and –1.00 (see, e.g., Grossman et al., 2002). These studies indicate
the highest participation elasticities for youth and young adults. Surveys
such as MTF, NHSDA, and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health
appear more limited in their ability to scrutinize heavy use.
One strand of studies links price series to the receipt of drug-related
emergency medical services. This approach provides an independent
measure of the extent of use, since it will rise with the amount con-
sumed (other things being unchanged). There is accumulating evidence
that heavy cocaine and heroin use are especially price sensitive, perhaps
because heavy users face more binding budget constraints on their ability
to finance a high level of drug consumption (Caulkins, 2001). A second
strand of literature explores self-reported or chemically detected sub-
stance use among arrestees (see Rhodes et al., 2002)
Unfortunately, the strong correlation over time and space in drug
prices hinders efforts to obtain definitive elasticity estimates. The results
reported by Grossman (2004) illustrate the underlying problem. In this
analysis, Grossman examines the relationship between drug prices and
drug-related emergency department visits. He estimates two reasonable
specifications, one that controls for a linear time trend and one that con -
trols for linear, quadratic, and cubic time trends. As shown below in Table
2-1, elasticity estimates are markedly different and the pattern is incon-
sistent across drugs and methods. The inconsistent estimates in Table 2-1
demonstrate that in many cases, econometric analysis of aggregate data
will not yield useful information about the price elasticity of the demand
for illegal drugs.

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MARKETS FOR DRUGS
TABLE 2-1 Participation Elasticities, According to Statistical
Assumptions
Marijuana Cocaine Heroin
Linear Cubic Linear Cubic Linear Cubic
Trend Trend Trend Trend Trend Trend
–1.188 –0.265 –0.133 –1.73 –0.095 –0.614
NOTE: Participation elasticities in alternative statistical specifications.
SOURCE: Grossman (2004). Reprinted with permission.
In the most recent analyses in this literature, Dave (2006) examined
cocaine and heroin-related emergency department admissions in 21 large
metropolitan areas. The author found an elasticity of the probability of
a cocaine mention with respect to cocaine prices was –0.27; the corre-
sponding elasticity in the case of heroin was –0.15. The author also found
evidence that heroin and cocaine act as complements in consumption.
In addition, he found negative lagged price effects, a pattern consistent
with either an addiction model or a cumulative insult model of individual
vulnerability to drug-related health concerns.
In another study, Dave (2004) reported on illegal drug use (as detected
by urinalysis) among arrestees. The author found short-term participation
elasticities of approximately –0.17 for cocaine and –0.09 for heroin, with
long-term elasticities approximately twice as large. The most striking
aspects of these papers are the low-point estimates of participation elastic-
ity compared with prior work.
CONCLUSION
The basic supply-and-demand approach from economics provides
a useful analytical framework to understand markets for illegal drugs.
On the conceptual side, we draw two main lessons. First, the economic
approach is flexible enough to capture many of the special features of
illegal drug markets and provides important insights. The second les -
son, however, is that much remains to be done to more fully incorporate
insights from richly detailed descriptions of illegal drug markets into the
economic approach. On the empirical side, the main lesson to be drawn is
the difficulty of estimating basic relationships between illegal drug prices
and the behavior of users and suppliers. This difficulty does not mean the
enterprise should be abandoned, but the current empirical understanding
should be viewed as very much a work in progress.

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